Upon going through the most expensive shopping spree of his life, Han Xuhan was naturally feeling rather overwhelmed.
Following the exchange rate between the mortal world's currency and spirit stones, he could've used that amount of money to build a castle and live like a lascivious young master for a decade.
Right now, he was holding a large block of crystallized special qi with body-nurturing properties. It had cost 150 spirit stones per block, each of which was around half a pound in weight.
On the floor of his hut, complicated symbols had been drawn using a special type of ink that could affect the coagulation of qi in the air.
It would save him the trouble of wasting his time to replenish his qi once his reserve ran out during the cycles. The qi cannon he had bought earlier had been refilled as well.
Seeing that everything had been set in place, Han Xuhan started his first attempt at making a breakthrough to the second layer of the physique transformation realm.
He had five more days left before the deadline came. In the last few days, he had used up resources crazily, his expenditure reaching a level that could frighten even the richest geniuses. Hundreds of spirit stones had disappeared with each major session.
Han Xuhan had come to the realization that without using resources like this, his normal cultivation speed would pretty much be stagnant. So, other than the sessions where he could burn resources to complete qi cycles, he didn't really need to cultivate anymore. The ordinary, inexpensive sessions wouldn't matter anyway.
Today was the day. Xuhan could avidly feel the changes in his body. During his long leisure hours every day when he didn't need to cultivate, he either hung around with his boss Mu Ran, or any senior disciple of his mountain peak and asked for guidance.
Just as he had planned to do since his first day here, he had managed to form a friendly relationship with most of the disciples he was acquainted with. Even his nominal master, elder Daheng, had become more mellow after being gifted an expensive tea set.
From their advice and casual lessons, Han Xuhan had benefitted a lot. With his own comprehension and the tenacity of someone who had gone through more than a decade of torturous education on earth, his mastery over his cultivation sessions had reached near perfection...well, as perfect as it could be with the damaged meridians.
The technique Han Xuhan was trying to cultivate first was the Skeletal Monarch manual.
Although it was deemed as useless, he had managed to make up a rough sketch of how he could integrate it with the Spiritual Bones technique.
The manner of cultivating the Skeletal Monarch manual was quite fun.
At each layer, the cultivator had to use his qi cycles to conjure and construct pieces of bones. With each passing cycle, they would have to merge the pieces into complete bones of whatever creature they were trying to create.
Each bone would have to be accurately merged in the skeleton structure, alongside the joints and ligaments.
The interesting thing was, the scroll where the technique was recorded never explicitly mentioned any limits regarding what kind of a skeleton the practitioner could construct.
This had given Han Xuhan some semblance of hope.
What if he managed to construct a humongous dragon's skeleton...?
But harsh reality told him otherwise.
First of all, the skeleton would have to be perfect and identical to the living creature it mimicked. Xuhan was familiar with human skeletons, and he could buy a model from the sect anytime.
But a dragon? No one in the sect had even seen anything of that sort in their lives.
Only one of the old elders with unfathomable cultivation was known to have battled a flood dragon at the peak of soul reformation realm, which was the weakest and most distant cousin of the legendary dragon race. It was actually considered to be a variant of snakes by many.
Without medically accurate structures available to him and no time to lose, the only thing Xuhan could do was to buy a human skeleton structure from the treasury. It was an essential for any cultivator who practiced body-strengthening techniques anyway. So it hadn't cost much.
He had a faint suspicion that the bones he was using as a template were real bones, and the skeleton a real person...but no one seemed bothered by that, so he couldn't complain.
"One day, hopefully, I'll be able to create a dragon skeleton. Even if it's a powerless pile of bones, just its appearance should be enough to settle any small scuffles. Heck, I could probably use that to fly around like a dragon-riding epic boss..."
This had become his new dream.
In the last few days, he had managed to construct a human skeleton after almost one thousand qi cycles.
Two hundred and six bones, roughly three hundred and sixty joints, nine hundred ligaments...most of which seemed unnecessary considering the skeletons wouldn't be moving in ways science could explain.
This also made Han Xuhan understand why this technique had such a bad reputation. Even the slowest mainstream techniques didn't require this much time and accuracy. Unless one cultivated like Xuhan, using up resources like a bottomless abyss per session to speed up the process and even construct multiple bones in one session with the added boost, it would be extremely difficult to keep up with the rest of their peers.
"Once this skeleton gains sentience, I'll be instantly promoted to the next layer," Xuhan muttered as he ran his hands over the adult-sized male skeleton. It looked no different from the real thing, other than having a strangely smooth texture on its bones.
As a finishing touch, Xuhan had also made a few very minor changes to its body that wouldn't affect its overall appearance and wouldn't stray far from what was considered medically accurate, like lengthening and sharpening the teeth considerably, making the finger-bones harder and thicker, making the toes stronger and heels more flexible with the help of extra ligaments....
The manual mentioned that once the practitioner's mastery over the technique went beyond the soul reformation realm, they would be able to fashion the skeletons any way they wanted, disregarding the previous limitations. But that was a destination far, far away.
Right now, these small changes were already toeing his limits.
"Let's hope this works out..."
Closing his eyes, Han Xuhan started running the cycle again. This time, he would have to be extra careful. The practitioner had no way of influencing how the personality of the skeleton turns out. One could only hope that it wouldn't be the personality of a teenager in their rebellious phase...
The qi inside his vessels moved like molten lava. Slowly, steadily, the cycle was forming. He could feel a deep pressure on his body and spirit, like something was being engraved on his very being.
Is this the "imprint" of a cultivation technique?
In elder Kong's words, a room and a foundation are being constructed?
The air around him distorted as if heated to an unnatural degree. The formation to gather and replenish his qi glowed in the dark. The block of crystallized qi was consumed in one fell swoop, something that could've instantly promoted a normal cultivator at his level, but it could only help him reach the peak of the first layer even after consuming many similar resources before this.
As time passed, Han Xuhan could feel his consciousness slowly slipping out like a piece of iron being attracted to a powerful magnet despite gravity's pull.
Moments later, his perception of the world was twisted like a crumpled paper. Try as he might, he could no longer open his eyes or even feel his body. The only thing he felt was a chilly rush through his very existence itself.
Without even trying, he imagined a plot of land that was his consciousness. Such a scene was planted thoroughly in his mind by elder Kong during his classes. It was moving, changing, evolving, like a gigantic, automatic machine revolving on its own.
Was this his sea of consciousness? How come there was no water in the sea? It was all cracked, flat soil.
Slowly, a tower drilled out of the flat ground, sending vibrations through the land that he could actually somehow feel reverberating in his mind. He was very close to the tower, and could see it in great detail.
A single room, illuminated by a radiant light from above, its source unknown...
Xuhan could feel his consciousness being pulled toward the tower, a grand door opened up by itself, leading him inside the room.
However, as soon as he floated in, the door was shut with a boom.
Xuhan felt a sense of deja vu. Wasn't his entrance to the sect also similar to this?
Inside the room, a serpentine form revolved in the air. Upon observation, Xuhan realized that it was the core qi diagram of the skeletal monarch technique. The cycle was made up of purple strands of liquefied qi. Twisting beautifully in the air, it looked very pleasing to the eye.
As it moved, Xuhan noticed a white structure inside the cycle, surrounded by the liquefied qi all around.
It was an identical copy of the skeleton he constructed in the real world, albeit smaller in size.
Xuhan remembered the advice from his teachers.
"Once you reach the peak of the first layer while practicing a technique, your dao base will reveal itself to your consciousness. It'll take the shape of whatever you imagine it to be instinctively. In your case, it should be something like a building since that's how elder Kong taught you to visualize your dao base.
Inside the building, you'll find a symbol of the technique you've cultivated. Once you see it, follow the instructions of the scripture to promote yourself to the second layer."
Remembering their words, Xuhan understood that now, his job was to make the skeleton gain sentience.
Xuhan imagined himself moving close to the small skeleton and realized his consciousness was actually moving according to his will.
Forming imaginary hands, Xuhan slowly touched the skeleton inside the imprint of the qi cycle.
A sucking sensation appeared all around him, making his consciousness distort and lose his visual ability once more. When the sensation vanished...
The room he had been in had disappeared. Now he stood on a huge barren field.
Everywhere he looked, the field stretched beyond his vision. A Crimson crystalline sun hung over his head in the sky, yet it radiated a strange chill rather than heat.
Looking up, Han Xuhan felt overwhelmed.
It was raining. But rather than droplets of water, what fell from the sky were countless crystal shards of various shapes and sizes.
The manual had been quite vague about this stage. What it mentioned could be summarized in one line-
Choose one soul, whichever you feel attracted to.
In this disembodied state, he couldn't feel his body, but he still sensed a primal fear as he witnessed the shards approach.
However, this fear was surpassed by his curiosity soon, because he could see lights of various shapes inside the shards.
As the shards began to fall into the ground all around him, Han Xuhan cautiously examined the light inside them and came to a conclusion.
Each of those shards represented a personality...or perhaps a soul. The shards all contained the same crimson light of the sun they originated from. The bigger the shard, the more intense the light inside.
The shards which fell on the ground sunk into the ground slowly instead of shattering, disappearing after some time. Han Xuhan avoided being hit by the falling shards, a task that wasn't particularly difficult since each and every shard maintained a good distance from the others.
The manual spoke of some form of attraction...he couldn't really feel that till now.
But there was indeed a strange sensation whenever he approached each shard. Most shards made him feel a sense of danger or abhorrence, while a few didn't really stimulate any feelings.
It took nearly fifteen minutes before he finally found one that he could approach without feeling an instinctive aversion or disinterest.
Inching closer, he touched the shard after hesitating for a while. The moment his consciousness came in contact with the shard, it melted into the air, leaving the crimson glow exposed to the air.
The light wrapped around his consciousness.
Han Xuhan felt a faintly familiar sensation. His vision was distorted for a moment again. When it was restored, he was inside the only room of his dao tower, his imaginary hands still touching the small skeleton avatar, which now radiated the same crimson glow as the shards.
As Han Xuhan looked at the crimson skeleton quietly, it suddenly moved its skull, locking its blank gaze with him.